Moon Society President Gets a Crew
Assignment
to the Mars Desert Research Station

March 2, 2005 - Report by Peter Kokh

February 6, 2005 - Early this Sunday morning, Moon Society
President Peter Kokh left his home in Milwaukee to fly to Salt Lake
City, Utah. That's the staging point for crew volunteers bound for
two week mission assignments at MDRS,
or "Analog Mars" as it is known to those who have been there.

The location is as awesomely and beautifully "Mars-like" as one
can imagine, indeed more so. Some 50 miles south of I-70, the main
Denver to Las Vegas trafficway, in south central Utah, 3 highway and
4 rugged dirt road miles NW
of Hanksville, a small town of 2,000 people, max, with no
neighbors for many, many miles.

The isolation comes with fringe benefits: on cloud free moonless
nights, the stars come out in such numbers as to blow one's mind. And
the Milky Way sucks you into its bosom.

And some liabilities: it's a long, long way to a hospital, or a
hardware store, or a McDonalds, a Walmart, a Home Depot - how long? A
hundred miles plus.

At a final turn in the rut-bouncing road, the Mars Hab appears
from behind a low rise, snuggled up against a ridge (Hab Ridge or
Radio Ridge as it is variously called.) You've reached the outpost.
Home away from home for two weeks. You walk through the front hatch
in Earth clothes, leaving Earth. You exit in an ingenious mockup
"EVA" spacesuit, and the illusion of being on Mars itself is
powerful.

That's the magic of the place. It inspires volunteers to give
their best to the various research projects and field exercise
simulations that consume most of their work day. Reports, put
together at laptop keyboards consume most of the remaining hours.

Previously, long time friend and fellow space activist, Ben Huset
of Minneapolis had emailed me that he had applied, and hoped to get
assigned to Crew #34, February 5-20, 2005. He was aiming for this
slot both because the timing fit a window in his personal
commitments, and because he had met and talked to the mission
commander, Paul Graham, at last summer's Mars Convention in Chicago.
Ben is a handy, Jack-of-all-trades kind of guy, and he thought he had
his best chance of being picked for this crew. Crew #34 would not be
conducting research and simulations as usual. In a break of schedule,
this would be purely a "refit" mission. The goal was to replace and
bring up to code all the Hab's electrical wiring (lights, outlets,
and breaker panel), the plumbing lines beset by all-too-frequent
nighttime freezeups, and other utility issues. The Hab had never been
adequately grounded, none of the upper floor portholes were designed
as an emergency exit, the very noisy generator with its volatile
diesel fuel tank was too close to the Hab, and on and on. The must-do
task list was dauntingly long.

But I am handy too, and Ben and I agreed that the best chance for
both of us to get assigned to any crew was to get on this one. It
would be a great opportunity to learn how the Hab works inside and
outside.

What did I get myself into! A lot of work, aching sore muscles,
fatigue -- yes. But the camaraderie was great. There were seven of
us. Crew capacity is six so that meant someone (else) stayed at the
hotel in town. We had a driving sense of mission and worked
frequently on into the night. Ben and I did manage to get outside a
few times, only one of them in EVA suits.

It was worth it. I left with a much better idea of what the Moon
Society might realistically seek to accomplish there,. Some of the
ideas I had earlier now revealed themselves to be impractical. But
new, better ideas came to mind to take their place.

This place is definitely Analog Mars. But it is also a frontier,
and many activities will be similar or closely analogous on the Moon
and Mars. We can put on gray-tint glasses or mentally ignore the
Mars-like colors. Until we have our own spot someday, we could not
find a better ready-to-use facility at which to get our feet wet in
outpost activity simulations with the purpose of learning things that
do not jump out at you in paper studies.

I hope to go back, not as a member, much less as commander of a
Moon Mission, but to pay an encouraging visit to a Moon Society crew
in the middle of their tour of duty.

Moon
Society Missions at MDRS will prepare us to better locate, better
design (inside and out), better equip, and better operate our own
analog station someday. Moon Missions in Utah are a first step on the
road to Project LETO which will involve a pair of Lunar Outpost
mockups, one for tourists in a high traffic area, the other for
research in realisolation.